Igor

source: Igor

Give us a break, will ya? No one expects a movie like this to equal "WALL-E" or "The Iron Giant"! Granted, it rips off "Nightmare Before Christmas" unabashedly (was anyone else as bugged as I by the shameless similarity between Malaria's King Malbert and "Nightmare's" Mayor?); and it has some pretty flat writing in spots. But there are good jokes ("Jaclyn/Heidi"; a "Yes Master's Degree") -- and you gotta love Eva, with the way she riffs on the Frankenstein tradition. Instead of misfit who can't figure out how to act right in a normal world, she's a maladjusted do-gooder in a kingdom of darkness. And that Louis Prima soundtrack -- some songs sounding like they were written just for this movie! I sat through it with a handful of families, and the kids sure liked it a lot. My guess is, it'll become one of those mid-level films like "PageMaster" or "Surf's Up" that some kids watch again and again. Not great; but by no means the disaster it's made out to be in other reviews here. . . .

IGOR (2008) ** (Voices of: John Cusack, Molly Shannon, Steve Buscemi, Sean Hayes, Eddie Izzard, Jennifer Coolidge, Jay Leno, John Cleese, Arsenio Hall, Christian Slater) Disappointing animated fare attempting to do what SHREK did for storybook characters this tries for classic horror characters ; to wit: the titular hunchbacked assistant to mad scientists (a game Cusack) decides to create his own 'evil' monstrosity and the end result is a gi-normous patchwork gentle giantess named Eva (Shannon also a good sport) who is far from being what he wanted her to be. The look of the film cribs liberally from Tim Burton's "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and its awful puns fall like bricks thanks to a logy screenplay by Chris McKenna. Best suitable for the wee ones ; for everyone else rent "Mad Monster Party". (Dir: Anthony Leondis)

In this animated comedy adventure, John Cusack plays the titular character, a sweet, intelligent lab assistant to an evil mad scientist who creates life, much to the chagrin of the mad-scientist community, in the, uh, person of a giantess named Eve. Although it's completely computer animated, the movie recalls such stop-motion-animation fare as The Nightmare before Christmas and the recent Coraline, not to mention the old Universal monster classics, whose old clichés get tweaked a few times. Igor (it's both his name and his profession) works for Dr. Glickenstein (John Cleese), who's desperately trying to make an evil invention to enter into the Evil Scientists Fair. See, King Malbert (Jay Leno) believes that the town can prosper only through these evil inventions, what with the farming community destroyed by climate change. Meanwhile, Igor - our Igor - is much smarter than he lets on, as Igors are stereotypically supposed to be dumb, slurring oafs good only for fetching things and pulling switches. Igor, in fact, has already made two inventions - a snide, suicidal-yet-immortal rabbit (Steve Buscemi), and a dumb robot with a brain (Sean Hayes). Circumstances lead Igor to try to make his own evil entry - the creation of life itself, something the real evil scientists have never been able to accomplish. The result: Eva, a giant, giant, giantess who's... well, not evil. This is because her Evil Bone must be activated, see; to do so, Igor even takes her to get brainwashed, but instead of horror images Eva somehow watches an episode of Inside the Actor's Studio with James Lipton, so when she emerges she's a struggling actress who's on her way to a big audition. Personally, I found this movie a whole lot of fun, probably because a) I love the old monster movies that are just skewered here and b) I love animated movies, too. John Cusack, one of my all-time favorites (I've seen more than thirty of his films) is great as the not-quite-evil lab assistant, and the animation is top notch, with wonderfully realized backgrounds that recall those old monster movies quite well. Steve Buscemi is an absolute hoot as Scamper, easily stealing every scene he's in - he gets all the great lines, but it's Buscemi's comic timing that make them come alive. So to speak. There's also a contextually perfect soundtrack, including a bouncy tune by Louis Prima called "The Bigger the Figure." Molly Shannon, who voices Eva, also delivers a fun, appealing performance.

Naturally most fans of The Nightmare Before Christmas who saw this trailer were interested in seeing Igor, it was the dark humor we craved around Halloween, not the typical safe humor used in most children's movies. I couldn't wait to see Igor, we have an awesome cast and what seems like a great story that was made for entertainment. So I saw this opening day with great hopes, but I left the theater a little disappointed, while it's a cute movie and is fun to watch at times, this was technically a failure when it comes to what I was expecting. I thought this was going to be funny and just a delight to watch, but it turned out to be predictable, the animation was mediocre and the humor at times was a little off key with the story. I'm not saying this movie was a total disaster, it's cute, it's worth the look, but like I said, the story doesn't add a special touch to make Igor stand out against other animated films. Igor is... well, and Igor, he's been trained specially for this job to serve a master who doesn't have the screws tightened quite right in his head. Igor doesn't want to be an assistant, he wants to be an inventor, and after one of his master's inventions kills him, Igor sees an opportunity to create the most evil invention of all and finally be respected as an inventor, with the help of his two friends/practice inventions, he creates Eva, a female Frankenstein type of monster who's not exactly monstrous. After trying to brain wash her, she gets the wrong message and wants to become an actress, Igor figures a way for her act evil and win the competition, but realizes that maybe having a heart of gold isn't so bad. But he still has one more problem, another inventor who is trying to take over will do anything to get ahold of Eva and rule the city. This movie is worth the look, I'd just say if you're going to go to the theater for it, I'd recommend a matinée, it's fun for your kids and I will say that there are some fun laughs and despite the story's predictability, it's still enjoyable. You really enjoy the comic relief from the two friends that Igor has, a cat who is immortal and a brain who isn't the smartest tool in the box, but they had great chemistry and gave the scenes some relief on the humor. I did like the movie, but it just didn't stand out to me, seeing it once was enough, I was really pulling for this movie, we need a new fun Halloween movie, but unfortunately Igor doesn't cut the cake. 6/10

Now that is a pretty strong statement to make. I also have 10 lines to submit this. When I first started reviewing here only a few lines were needed. I did not sit through all of this mess, 20 minutes was all I could take. The story is beyond silly, it is idiotically stupid, in what I saw there was not even a smile on my face, or even the glimmer of a smile. The animation was even bad. I made my 10 lines,so here come the ratings. 1/2 * (out of 10) 15 points (out of 100) IMDb 1 (out of 10)** **I do not remember when a film got a lower ratings.

A great voice cast is wasted here. The jokes were not funny. What is an animation without a few laughs? I couldn't count the number of punch lines that went down with silence in the theatre, and this was one packed with kids! The idea is not too bad if not heavily influenced by other work. Cleese is not in it much, but he wasn't particularly funny when he was in it. To waste Cleese is a sin, but to waste Cleese, Izzard and Buscemi is something else. The animation is annoying as we have seen so much better from Pixar. If this film had been given to Brad Bird, we would have seen a better and more successful movie. With this version i was only left with the question. Would this of ever been made without Tim Burton?

Igor is a movie which attempts to be witty and bring a dark animated comedy to children. Tim Burton did this successfully in Nightmare Before Christmas. Anthony Leondis and Chris McKenna failed miserably. Although the drab look of the world they created was fitting, it never quite felt convincing. For example, in the world of Malaria (the world in which Igor lives), there is a king. However, it never felt that this king ruled over very much because the audience was never allowed to see the beauty (or lack of beauty) of Malaria. Most of the movie feels as though it was shot in the basement of Igor's house! Finally, there was never enough compelling characters to carry this movie. Beyond Igor and his pals, you just didn't care what happened to anyone else. As for small children, they should be forewarned that with a dark comedy comes some very questionable topics. One common one (without giving anything away) is the trivializing of suicide. Although nothing bloody was shown, many forms of death and torture were alluded to. I have a 6 year old daughter and a 13 year old son. I prefer that my daughter not hear about such things, albeit even in a joking manner. So if the material is not suitable for small children and teenagers would rather spend their time in a more entertaining theater and adults won't find this feature engrossing... that leaves kids 8-11 who MIGHT enjoy the 90 minutes of footage. Save your $12 per ticket and take the family out to dinner. You're sure to stomach what's served to you there over Igor!

I enjoyed "Igor" because its messages, humour, the characters, the cast chosen and the CGI was terrific. The messages explain that we all can be evil, but we do not have to be evil and can make our own decisions - an incredibly good message that all too few people in this world seem to grasp. The humour can be dark and slapsticky some of the time, but there are a great deal of very entertaining one-liners. The characters are all likable, even the baddies (the most featured baddie, voiced by Eddie Izzard, is extremely good and mainly because of Izzard). All of them are well-planned and have an important part in the film. The cast chosen were very good, including the comics Eddie Izzard (mentioned earlier) and John Cleese (he hardly appears, but is an important character). The CGI is almost always dark, a sort of creepy purplish colour. All of the characters, objects and places in the film are well- animated. While they do not look realistic, they still look impressive. In "Igor" (which is based on Frankenstein), we come to the kingdom of Malaria, where everything is evil and the sun never shines. In the kingdom are a group of evil scientists who make evil, destroying inventions each year for the annual evil science fair. The scientists have hunchbank servants, all called Igor. There is one Igor who is slightly different from the rest. He wants to be more than just another "Igor", he wants to be an evil scientist. He has already created an immortal rabbit (who does not want to live) and a robot with a big brain - a rather idiotic brain, I hasten to add. Will Igor manage to live up to his dreams, and create an invention to win the science fair..? I recommend this fun, watchable film to people over the ages of 8 (this may look like a children's' film, but some children might be scared easily by this film, as there are a few gruesome bits), to people who like madcap creepy fantasy films and to people who like CGI animation. Enjoy "Igor!" :-)

Igor flip the channel. I'll start off by saying i really wanted to like this movie. I've been looking forward to it for more than 2 months now and I was completely blown away by it's lack of humor and uninspired script. I'm a big fan of John Cusack and he does a good job with the voice acting but honestly there's no shining light to this film. It's the biggest disappointment of the year for me and i strongly suggest anyone hoping to see a fun movie to look elsewhere. It was long, tedious and felt stitched together. The movie isn't funny and may be too complicated for the younguns and is too childish and uninspired for adults. If you like horror comedy with a playful twist i suggest you simply go out and buy Nightmare before Christmas instead. I hope this could help, i wish i would've read a similar review beforehand.